June 9, 2010
Before coming to India, many of my friends told me that within the first couple of days, I would notice the “head wobble” and before leaving Delhi, I would pick it up. Well it’s the funniest thing to me, but it’s a cultural mannerism used all throughout India…so I think I finally got it down.
The Indian head wobble is meant to connote a non-verbal sign of understanding or thinking. It isn’t a nod, nor is it a shake of the head. The motion actually reminds me of a bobblehead – if you lightly touch it on the very top of it’s head and give it a side-to-side push, it starts to wobble a bit from right to left. So the wobble doesn’t always mean “yes”, and it doesn’t always mean “no”…it doesn’t even always mean “maybe.” From what I gather, since it’s kind of a side-to-frontish-side-back-side-to-side, it mostly seems to mean, “I heard you.” So you always have to follow up your wobble with a confirmation question or statement of some sort if you want to clarify something. It’s one of the funniest things.
So if you were to ask me right now, “How’s India?” Here’s my answer:
No comments:
Post a Comment